The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-01-29

poetic form. In either case, he gives
the poet as authority, so that we have
the means of weighing his statement.
We are thus delivered from the notion
that a stupendous miracle was wrought
in behalf of Joshua; that local battle
between two wild tribes Of the wilder
ness and mountain was of sufficient i'm
pOrtance to affect the entire solar sys.
tenn. Whoever reads the account in
the Revision easily sees that this mar
vel of the heavens is reduced to a figure
speech.
The figure is not uncommon in the
highly wrought imagery of Israel's
bards. Habakkuk, in a passage Of great
power, describes the majesty of Cod
"Thou didst ride upon thy horses and
thy chariots of salvation. Y The noun
tains saw thee and they trembled the
overhOwing of the water passed by; the
deep uttered his voice and lifted up
his hands on high. The sun and moon
stood still in their habitation." The
same figure essentially appears in Isaiah:
"Thy sun shall no more go down, ueith-
er shall thy moon withdraw itself for
the Lord shall be thine everlasting light,
and the days of thy mourning shall be
ended" These passages give us ne
difficulty. In the Bible, as well as in
every other book, we must make the
distinction between prose and poetry.
The case of IeZekiah, in which the
shadow is said TO have come backward
ten degrees upon the dial, is a case in
vOlving the same principle of eXplana-
ton. The chief acts and incidents in
the lives of great kings were often sung
by the bards of the nation. The re-
covery of Hezekiah was so notable as to
attract the attention of neighboring
kings, and would easily furnish theme
for song. viii not the key given by
the passage in Joshua unlock this diff
Guilty AS Jasher sang of JOshua's
great victory, may not some other poet
have sung of Hezekiah' s great recovery?
Why not in some such words as these:
"As though the sun at close of day
were to go back and pass once more
through the hours on the dial so the
kings life, when fastening to its end,
entered ON its course afresh 20 The
historian, emitting the poetic form,
put the figure into literal prose, as the
compiler of the Book of Joshua did the
figure of Jasher.
1t may be of interest to know that
stopping the sun or dragging him back
in his course, is by no means an uncom-
mon idea. We find it in the legends of
several religions. In Polynesian myth,
Maui tries to cure Ra, the sun-god, of
his trick of setting before the days
work is done. He twists ropes of cocoa
nut fiber and places them at intervals
along the suns path. He finally sue
ceeds in ensnaTing him, and pulls the
ropes 50 tight that Ra, the sun-g0d,
comes to terms, and agrees to 90 slower,
so that the days work can be finished.
In Tahitian myth, Maui is a priest
who is building a house that must be
finished by daylight, so he seizes the
sun by its rays and binds it to a tree till
the house is built. The North Amer
ican Indians have a similar tradition,
as have also ether tribes and nations.
The idea, therefore, in Hebrew poetry
and Gentle legend, is familiar to the
world
The idea, both in song and story, may
have originated in the mind of man as
he beheld the swift passage of time,
and thought of the work to be done be-
fore life went out in darkness. Sun
and moon pursued their inexorable
pathway, the shadow on the dial went
round with TemOrseless precision. No
matter what labor was to be performed,
how mighty the tasks, how mOmen-
tOus the interests, the hours were shOd
with sandals of lightning and hasted
by. The heart Of man would 90 out in
agony Of desire, and his lips would
often utter the cry, "StOp, o sun, in
thy track and thou, moon, stay thy